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Ensure an efficient liberalisation of the domestic passenger
markets whilst clarifying the relation between infrastructure
management and railway operators, and the attribution of
public service contracts under competitive conditions.
2.5. FTA negotiations with Japan
On 29 November 2012, the European Foreign Affairs Council (Trade) decided to
give the European Commission ‘the green light’ to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement
(FTA) with Japan. UNIFE welcomes the opening of the negotiations, even
though immediate steps could already be taken to open the Japanese rail market.
Despite the efforts made by the European Commission and the rail industry in
the past four years, no significant steps have been taken so far by the Japanese
government and operators to improve access to public procurement in the
railway sector. This contrasts with the situation in Europe, where Japanese rail
suppliers have access to the market and were indeed awarded major contracts.
Whilst the launch of FTA negotiations is a significant opportunity to remedy to
this situation, UNIFE considers that, as far as railway is concerned, immediate
steps to open their rail market could be taken by the Japanese authorities, in
line with the EU-Japan exchange of letters on railway procurement signed in
December 2011.
In particular, UNIFE would like to stress the following points:
01
The Japanese government should take immediate steps to ensure
that European suppliers get a comparable and effective
access to the Japanese market; these steps, which should include
concrete business opportunities for European suppliers,
should be carefully reviewed after one year of negotiations;
02
The Operational Safety Clause, if not completely removed,
should be applied in a transparent, predictable, and non-discriminatory
manner;
The three JRs, which represent the major share of the Japa-
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